UGANDA: A prayer and plea for Leelah Alcorn.

You know our merciful father;Leelah felt like a beautiful song without words,A ship underneath the waves,A bird without wings,A child who lost its way home,Leelah didn’t find a reason to smile!

Beautiful Leelah;
Your eyes didn’t open to see the world to its fullest,
Like a bud you were preyed on!
You were hated by those meant to love you the most,
They wished you were better than who you were,
Yet, you were still the most beautiful even in your transgender identity,
Though your beauty didn’t meet their requirement!

You didn’t smile to the sunset nor to the sunrise,
You went too early before the dawn,
You didn’t listen to the voices of the beautiful birds singing lullaby melodies to you,
You didn’t live to hold the world into your palms,
Leelah; before you learnt how to smile; your heart frowned in agony,
Before you learnt how to laugh; you were laughed at and teased,
Before you learnt how to love; you were hated!
Your innocence was tested, your plight wasted, your ego killed and your glow shuttered.

You lived at the edge of happiness and agony,
At the thin line between hate and love.
You wished and longed for a voice to listen and understand you,
You yearned for a heart to love you,
A hand to hold and lead you,
A shoulder to lean on,
I can only imagine the darkness that light your heart was as you wrote your suicide note,
How grieved you were as you committed yourself to death.
We wish too,
We were there to let you understand!
Let you understand that we are all endangered species!
Endangered species of humanity!
People who have been treated to hate for being who we are!

Dear God; did Leelah reach you?Young as she was, she felt she were a girl even when she was expected to be a boy! The feelingthey blamed unto recruitment! They called her evil, they despised the innocence that her eyesread as she looked unto them; the saints of the world. “Let the children come to me”, you said; Iam confident your priceless lamb lays in your warm embrace now; her innocence could notbetray her.

Leelah Leelah, we wish your enthusiasm could be a positive signal to the homophobes. We wish it
could change the hearts of the “hate preaching” men of God.
Please God; teach them that no one loves to end their lives for a cause simple to reverse; no one
wishes to live a life parallel to the normal; teach them that, you in your image made us that way
to test “them”. To test their love for one another and their ability to tolerate; tell them; we are
only born as victims of circumstances! Dearest God, if they can’t love me, who they see, how
can they love you, the unseen? She wanted to live her life in reality; she wore the tag” out and proud”, we are
proud; she wore it till the end.

Leelah; You walked the journey of grief alone, you went into therapeutic lessons, to learn to
change who you are, and the world wanted you less of who you were! The fundamental tenet of
Christianity is that we are all born sinners! How could we have forgotten to bear Leelah among
us? We all share a relationship with sin much as we are born to a Holly father, we all live in
unending sinful situations and what consoles us is forgiveness. How could we have failed to
forgive Leelah and accept her the way she was? There is no absolute standard of morality but we
are compelled to these three virtues; justice, mercy and faithfulness. How could we have failed to
be merciful to her? The agony still resides in our hearts, we wish we could bring back the
morning but we know your heart already forgave us! We wish we had lived with you just one
more hour, we wish we had understood you, for just a minute, we wish we had you once more.

Beautiful Leelah; your efforts were tedious, having lived seventeen years of loneliness, years of
wishes, years of longing, but your efforts to live were futile that’s why you left us. The
sacraments were meant to bring you closer to God, though they weakened your bond with Him.
Your parents only wished you were the boy they had given birth to! They wished you had lived
to be the man of their imaginations like your dad. But you only know, you were high when you
feel low, you will need the light when it gets dark, when we can’t reverse our actions is when we
realize we should have given you the right to be who you were.

Leelah, you lived your life to the fullest in your imaginations but the epitome of your happiness
reigns; we stand for the acceptance of transgender children because you opened the door to that
cause. Your spirit still guides us to seeking the strength of using your experience to end
homophobia. To us you are a hero despite your fall. Your name will always come by our lips,
your experience will keep a thought on our minds, to you our efforts will be measured to success,
for by you, we drive through the hurdles of darkness, wilderness but we are strengthened to hang
on; the transgender must be treated to equality.
Thank you for getting us aboard in your life journey, we shall work our nails out in seeking to
embrace your cause, we wish you could listen to our voices!